Hawke's Bay Regional councillor Tom Belford is refusing to answer an official request by Central Hawke's Bay mayor Peter Butler for his telephone and email records, saying it will set a harmful precedent.
However, this principle might not be enough to withhold information under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act.
On August 26 Mr Butler wrote to HBRC interim chief executive Liz Lambert, requesting all email and phone record communications of Mr Belford from August 8 to August 25.
"Of particular interest are any communications with Peter Fowler of Radio New Zealand, the Hawke's Bay Today, Simon Lusk, Russell Norman, and Genevieve Toop of Greenpeace NZ relating to either the Ruataniwha Dam or the Havelock North water contamination incident," he wrote.
In an email to regional councillors on Sunday, Mr Belford stated he was declining to respond to the request, "other than to confirm that I have had no contact whatsoever with two of the named individuals - Russell Norman and Simon Lusk."